I find this puzzling. If it’s immoral to vote against someone simply because they are a woman or non-caucasian, where in the bible of political correctness does it make it okay to vote for someone for those very same reasons?

Can you imagine the uproar it would have caused in this year’s elections if Condoleeza Rice had run for president on the Republican ticket? Having served the country at an executive level of foreign relations, she’s eminently more qualified for the White House than either of the Democrats’ gender- or ethnic-based candidates.

Personally, I’m more than just a little bit tired of the presidential candidates pandering to the far left and far right extreme elements of their respective parties. I’ve got news for those pols. The majority of the American people don’t fall into either category and neither, generally, does sound judgment or good government. We’re supposed to have representative government where the majority rules. When we get a president out of the left-wing or right-wing elements, the majority is not represented at all.. . .

Now for the scariest thought brought to my attention in a long time. Suppose Hillary gets the Democratic Party nomination for president and chooses Bill as her running mate. And they win!

Hillary is sworn in as president on Jan. 20, 2009. The next day she calls a press conference and announces her resignation. That makes Bill president … again! And it’s all perfectly legal under the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, since it states that “no person may be elected as president more than twice.” Bill is not elected, but merely serving out all four years of Hillary’s term.

But there is more! The following day, Bill calls a press conference and names Hillary to fill the now vacant office of vice president. And she’d still be eligible to run for the presidency again! I was told she could do it twice, but I think only once since she would actually have been elected to the office once, even though she didn’t serve.. . .

Here’s another one of those “you know it had to happen sometime” issues:

Wisconsin’s eternally inept Department of Natural Resources is apparently going to admit, at last, that there are cougars in the state. That’s because, according to a recent article in Milwaukee’s major daily newspaper, a “veteran” hunter and trapper saw one in Rock County, down near the Illinois border.

I guess the teachers, loggers, businessmen, and others who’ve been seeing cougars in northern Wisconsin for years, simply aren’t “veteran” hunters enough. I’d venture that some of the folks I know personally who have seen cougars spend more time in the real outdoors than most of the office-based wildlife experts in Madison who are making the ridiculous rules and decisions.

If you look at a lot of the DNR decisions coming out of Madison, you almost have to conclude that those folks think everything north of Highway 64 is in Michigan!

I’m also beginning to draw the conclusion that the upper echelon staffing of natural resources type agencies is the product of genetic manipulation. Think about it. They all think alike, whether it’s Wisconsin’s DNR, the U.S. Forest Service in the Rocky Mountain states, or, in an interesting case I just learned of, the management of national wildlife areas.

Get this. The Theodore Roosevelt National Wildlife Area in Mississippi has multiple reserves in the state. Each has a director. The Yazoo Wildlife Area where I hunted recently has a new director and offices and housing are provided at the area’s headquarters. The new director is pushing to have all the offices consolidated and moved to Yazoo City, about 60 miles away, because he doesn’t want to live in such a remote area. Greenville, population 45,000, is the closest city of consequence to the Yazoo Wildlife area and it’s at least 20 miles away.

Now, one might be inclined to think that someone in charge of a wildlife area might want to be close enough to the premises to know what’s going on there. Apparently that’s not the case with such wildlife bigwigs. It’s too inconvenient for them to live outside a city. It’s not too inconvenient, however, for the unlucky saps who want to hunt those areas to have to drive 60 miles or so out of their way in order to get the permits necessary.

Oh, and as a sidebar, when you buy those $12 permits, you have to get a money order. They won’t accept cash, checks, or credit cards.